Windows TP .... nyuk, nyuk

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>>>>> "City" == City Barber Shop <lynnal@cblink.com> writes:

    >> Linux is a free operating system for intel-based PCs running
    >> 386 and up processors,

    City> I would be interested in knowing if there is a large market
    City> of linux /unix users in general population?  Is this going
    City> back to command prompt system where commands or macro's must
    City> be typed in?  What kind of software is available /
    City> programs.?  Since I do web page deisgn/creation and a little
    City> graphic work, would this operating system be compatible when
    City> FTP ing a page to a server?  and web page deisgn in general?

    City> Have you used this system long yourself?

Unix runs most of the web servers on the internet.  The ftp protocol
was first implemented in Unix.  Unix can be used command line fashion
if that is your preffered style, but there is also the X11 windowing
system, which is considerably more flexible and versatile than
anything Microsoft has yet to release.  

For instance, I am sitting at my desk at my client's but I am typing
into a window running emacs on my computer 45 minutes away (as the car
drives...).  It works just as if I was in my office in my basement at
home.  I also frewuently sit at home and work on the computer on my
desk here at work.  With X11, where you display a program has nothing
to do with where it is running.  Even as I type, there are other
windows on my screen running programs on the computer on my desk, and
I could just as easily open up a program on yet another machine and
send its display here where I am sitting.

X11 also has the concept of a window manager.  The wm is responsible
for the look and feel of the windows, not X11 itself.  That way,
different people with different styles of work, can run different
window managers to suit their different styles.  There is even one wm,
fwm, that emulates the look and feel of MS-Windows 3.10, and another,
fvwm95, that emulates the look and feel of Windows-95.  I prefer ctwm,
but my daughter likes fvwm.  Many people that I work with prefer olwm,
which makes the windows act like the windows on a Sun workstation.

Unix is a multi-user operating system, so it is not unusual for me to
look and find several people logged into my computer from various
places around the world.  Since yesterday, my daughter and I have
logged in, along with Bro. Jerry Caesar who attends the same church I
do in Chicago, another brother from North Carolina, and two other
people from Islamibad Pakistan.  All of these people can be on at the
same time without any trouble, so long as they connect over the
internet.  (I only have one dial-in modem.  I have two dial out
modems, but one is always connected to the internet, and the other is
usually connected to my client's site.)

Unix is a multi-tasking system, and right now I see that my machine
has 140 seperate programs running on it.  Unix is well suited to
networking, and right now there are 42 connections from my machine to
other places on the internet.  Some of these are to the computer at
work I am sitting in front of, but others go all over the world.

What kind of software is available?  Well, if you are saying for Unix,
just about anything your heart could desire.  For Linux, the story is
a little simpler.  Linux, being a *FREE* system, has no advertising
budjet, hence it is not well known among non-techie types.  There is a
great deal of techie-type software, andf also a lot of educational
stuff (schools like free systems).  There is not much commercial
stuff.  For instance, I have not found a good spreadsheet for Linux
yet.  Word processing is another story.  Linux supports TeX and LaTeX,
which are extremely high quality typesetting systems, but not terribly
user-friendly.  There is now a GUI wrapper for latex called 'lyx' that
gives you the best of both worlds -- tex quality typesetting and a GUI
WYSIWYG interface.

Since Unix is the system of choice to run a web server, there are a
lot of tools for maintaining web pages that run under unix and linux.
Netscape run great under unix and linux.  I am running communicator
here at work.  However, since there now seems to be money to be made
selling web page editors, the commercial world is pushing all sorts of
razzle dazzle for use on the largest market for such things, Microsoft
systems.

I have been using Unix since 1989, and I also switched my PC from DOS
and MS-Windows 3.10 to ISC 386/ix SVR3.2 Unix that year.  I switched
to Linux in 1995 since it ammounted to an upgrade in performance, with
no cash outlay.  I am very glad I did.

For a comparison of Microsoft NT and Unix, see:

   http://www.standishgroup.com/syst.html

-- 
--------  "And there came a writing to him from Elijah"  [2Ch 21:12]  --------
Robert Jay Brown III rj@eli.elilabs.com  http://www.elilabs.com 1 847 705-0424
Elijah Laboratories Inc.;  37 South Greenwood Avenue;  Palatine, IL 60067-6328
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